


Talk Clean

by candle_beck



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candle_beck/pseuds/candle_beck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What we've got here is failure to communicate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk Clean

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 2004.

Talk Clean  
By Candle Beck

Mulder’s stutter came back bad during the All-Star Game.

It was, jesus, it was bright and loud and huge. Everybody was famous and everybody had adrenaline sheering out of them, whitelight blind and deaf from the static. It was motherfucking hot in Houston, don’t mess with Texas, don’t mess with the blackened Texas heat, it’ll run you over, run you down.

Painfully aware that he was probably one of the least-recognizable members on this legendary roster, Mulder went out with his six runs of support (at some point his offense had become totally fucking infatuated with him, no matter which line-up he was pitching behind) and didn’t walk Bonds and pretty much cruised and had barely even gotten warmed up when he left after two.

And when he was pulled aside in the dugout for an interview sometime in the fourth, he thought he knew what he was gonna say. Well, yeah, he did know what he was gonna say, he just couldn’t. Say it. Couldn’t fucking say it.

Because he and Hudson had been hip-to-hip ever since they’d both gotten down to Houston, the sole representatives of their team in this enemy dugout of Yankees and Indians, they’d stuck close, and Hudson was ragging him like always, calling him a run hog, and Mulder figured that was a clever sort of thing to relate to the biggest audience he would talk to until October (if October).

The pretty Fox Sports woman whose name he could never remember asked him, predictably, about the lead the AL had staked him to, and Mulder said, “Huh-hud-hud-hu—” and he kept saying that for an impossibly long period of time.

He could see the name in his head, written in flashbulbs, HUDDY in giant glowing letters, and he could hear a million chattering voices saying it over and over, ‘huddyhuddyhuddyhuddy,’ and he’d said it himself more times than he could count, maybe there wasn’t any other name he said as often as he said that name, but it was stuck, it was jammed in his throat and it was probably only a few seconds but it felt like a decade of trying and he was panicking, he’d never be able to say it, he’d just stand here in the dugout with Huddy’s name choking him forever, and the camera was rolling and everybody was seeing this, the whole world, seeing him dumb and inarticulate and all the stuff he didn’t think he was anymore.

His middle school speech therapist, telling him patiently, “It’s not one word, Mark, it’s two, break it up, say each part,” and he thought, ‘Hud. Dee.’ He thought, ‘he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.’

Finally, the name came and then he was talking easily, just like always, after he got started, got the first word out, and now he was biting off the end of each word and tasting the first syllable on his tongue.

Probably no one noticed. Probably no one thought twice about it.

He was flatly relieved when the interview was over, sitting back on the bench next to Miggy, who was a familiar face and ever-grinning, especially after the shortstop had decided to become briefly possessed by George Herman the night before.

Nah, nobody noticed.

Then Hudson wandered past and kicked his shoe, sidling him a look and Mulder knew that Hudson hadn’t missed it, Hudson had seen it all. Heard the baffling lock of Mulder’s mind, the paralysis.

Mulder thought again about ghosts.

After the game, back at the hotel, Mulder was swiftly packing the small duffel he’d brought, tired of being in Texas after only two days, missing California and thinking that he’d be able to sleep in tomorrow. And there was a knock on his door.

Mulder pulled on a T-shirt and checked to make sure it wasn’t anybody from the media. He sighed, rested his forehead on the wood for a second.

Hudson had his hands in his pockets, strolled in. Huddy didn’t quite come up to Mulder’s shoulder and Mulder, feeling stupid and overly tall and self-conscious, sat down on the bed.

“Where’s the family?” Mulder asked.

Huddy shrugged, skimming his gaze around the room like it wasn’t a photocopy of every other hotel room they’d ever stayed in. “Dinner. I begged off.”

One of Mulder’s eyebrows twitched up. “How come?”

Hudson didn’t answer, drawing his eyes to meet Mulder’s, looking down at him for once. His mouth was tight, his eyebrows charcoal-colored and hunched down seriously. “So, you had a bit of a thing tonight, I guess.”

Mulder cut his eyes away. “What’re you . . . talking about?” he said slowly, measuring it out.

Hudson laughed once, without much humor behind it. “C’mon, man. I haven’t heard you wreck like that since you were as green as Crosby.”

A reluctant smile at the corners of his mouth, Mulder shot back, “Dude, I was never as green as Crosby.”

“Right.”

Hudson paused, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets. He was studying Mulder intently, making Mulder want to squirm and shift away. Hudson said carefully, quietly, without a hint of a question, “You got nervous.”

No point in stonewalling anymore, Huddy knew him too well. Mulder shook his head. “Nothing to be nervous about. I was already out of the game.”

Hudson lifted his eyebrows. “You’re not usually talking on a national broadcast. All-Star broadcast.”

Mulder glared at him. “You think I can’t handle the press? Since when have I not been able to handle the press?”

Scoffing, Hudson answered, “You don’t ‘handle’ the press, you bore the press to fucking tears. But you do it without stuttering.”

“I don’t fucking stutter!” Mulder snapped viciously, and they were both surprised by it. Mulder flushed darkly, scuffing the carpet with his bare foot, muttering, “I mean, not anymore.”

Hudson didn’t say anything for a long time, and Mulder finally looked back up at him. Huddy was looking, Christ, angry, of all things, as if he had some sort of right to be.

“Look, I don’t know,” Hudson said, a weird hard tone. “I know it comes back when you get . . . upset. Or whatever. So, like, I heard you . . . it came back tonight and I just wanted to . . . make sure. That you were cool. Okay?”

Mulder sneered, feeling like an asshole. “Yeah, bud, I’m cool. I just started the All-Star Game and I got twelve wins at the break, I’m fucking chill. It was, like, maybe a couple of seconds that I . . . had trouble. It was just one goddamn word, so big fucking deal.”

And Hudson’s eyes flashed pale green, and yeah, right down to cases now. “One goddamn word? Not quite, man.”

Mulder dragged a hand through his hair, scouring hard at the back of his head. “What the fuck, man? So it was your name, so what? It was just the first thing I was trying to say, that’s all. It’s not some huge thing.”

“You’ve never been able to lie worth shit, dude,” Hudson told him flatly.

“Oh, fuck off, Tuh-tuh-tim,” and Mulder could not fucking believe that happened. He covered his face with his hands. “Please don’t take that to mean anything. Tim. Tim. Huddy. See, I’m fuh-fine.” Mulder slammed his fists on his knees, half-screaming, “FUCK!” but at least he half-screamed it cleanly.

He got his hands back up over his eyes, counting breaths and forcing himself to calm down.

There was a scuffle and then the bed sank as Hudson sat down beside him. “What’s going on?” Hudson asked softly.

The heels of his hands tucked into his eye sockets, Mulder shook his head blindly. “I fucking got over this, already. I spent four motherfucking years g-g-getting over this.”

Huddy’s hand brushed across his back, there then gone again. “Why’s it coming back now? Seems like . . . like this should be the last time it would come back.”

Mulder sighed, thinking way too much about every word he said, and in the back of his mind, ‘he thrusts his fists against the posts.’ He shook his head, not looking at his friend. “I don’t know. It d-d-doesn’t make any suh-sense. Goddamn it.” It was getting worse. He was never gonna talk right again. He was gonna be fourteen years old again, stammering and blushing and slouching down in front of class to hide his height.

(still insists he sees the ghosts)

Hudson cupped his hand around the back of Mulder’s neck, his wedding ring smooth and cold, and out of the corner of his eye Mulder could see the black twist of the tattoo on his forearm.

“You can’t say my name, that’s okay. That’s nothing. Just, like, hit me or something. To get my attention. That’ll work.”

Mulder breathed out a laugh, angled a slight smile at the man beside him. “You’ll answer if I start calling you jackass, right?”

Hudson rolled his eyes. “Yeah, give that a try, see what happens.” He paused. “Didn’t stutter just then.”

Mulder rubbed his forehead. “Wasn’t th-thinking about it. Unlike nuh-nuh-now. Jesus.”

Huddy’s hand was still on his neck, his thumb moving in slow circles, like a gathering burn. “So stop thinking about it.”

Mulder snorted. “That duh-definitely doesn’t help.” He grimaced. “Okay, I’m just g-g-gonna stop talking nuh-now.”

Fuck, even when he was in middle school it wasn’t this bad.

Hudson nodded solemnly. “Good idea,” he whispered, then pushed Mulder back on the bed, his hand rough and hard through Mulder’s shirt, and Mulder blinked up at him, Hudson still looking angry, looking determined and like he’d been on the DL for maybe one day too long.

Hudson leaned over him dark-eyed and scraped his teeth on Mulder’s throat, making Mulder snatch a quick surprised breath and instinctively hook his hands on Hudson’s shoulders, pushing him away.

Braced with his arms on either side of Mulder’s body, Hudson glared down at him. “You want me to fix you or not?”

Mulder’s mouth opened but he didn’t say anything, he wouldn’t have been able to say anything, he was stuck, he was motionless.

Bending down, Hudson roughed his cheek across Mulder’s and bit his earlobe, and Mulder’s arms were around his back all of a sudden and Hudson’s hand was heavy on his stomach.

Huddy could still snap a splitter off the table and curse his slider in at the knees, but goddamn if that was all he could do with his right hand.

And Mulder had his mouth open and his eyes closed and yeah, driving him insane, basically, and Hudson growling into his ear, “Say it.”

Mulder flicked his head back and forth, humming deep in his throat and gasping sharply, and Huddy tightened his hold, demanded, “Fucking say it.”

Mulder bit his lip and tasted blood and whispered, “Tim. Huddy. Please, man.”

Huddy laughed low, rasping, shifted up with half his weight on Mulder. “Good, see. See?”

Nodding, and Mulder was blind. He said Hudson’s name some more, every version of Hudson’s name that there was, and he wasn’t held down anymore, and it was Huddy, Huddy, Huddy, exactly right, clear, clean.

Yeah, it didn’t fucking matter why his stutter had come back. It was gone again.

It was fucking *gone*.

THE END


End file.
